


Postpartum

by PickleandtheQueen



Series: The Family Circle [4]
Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Angst, Depression, F/M, Family, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-22 19:17:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4847201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PickleandtheQueen/pseuds/PickleandtheQueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set after the Birth of Suri. Piccolo is struggling with his mental state and dark thoughts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Postpartum

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a long time ago to help me with my own struggles with depression. Never had an ending for it, and honestly there still isn't one. I added enough of an "ending" to post it, but in truth, this never ends.

Piccolo was awake before the baby began to cry. He had not been sleeping. Or, he had been sleeping too much. But at the wrong times.

He was sitting up, staring at the crib where Suri sobbed, tossing about, arms and legs flailing.

"Piccolo..." Chichi groaned, shifting. " _Piccolo_ , baby... The baby... Suri." He picked up the child, tucking the squirming little sprout to his chest. Suri began to quiet, bundling into the sound of his father's heartbeat, but Piccolo could feel the child's mind reaching towards his own. And he recoiled. His thoughts were dark, and should not be shared with a babe.

But Suri protested, loudly, and Piccolo felt the child's need for comforting scream across their bond. And yet, he could do nothing. "Piccolo," Chichi sat up, rubbing her face. "You have to - _Baby_!" she sounded concerned. He barely resisted when she took Suri from his hands, drawing the child close to her chest, humming and caressing the baby's head, cooing and kissing between the short, developing antennae. Suri took several moments, but he calmed, his fussing quieting. "Piccolo," she murmured, still cuddling Suri, "Baby... Have you been...feeling alright?" Piccolo could hear an emotion in her voice, _worry_ , he thought. "I've noticed you've been..." Chichi paused. Piccolo's ears twitched, and he turned to look at her. Said nothing. In the dark, he could not see her face. He had terrible night-time vision. But... Chichi shifted closer to him, gently transferring Suri back into his arms. "Talk to me, Baby," she murmured.

Piccolo looked down at Suri again, barely making out his shape in the dark.

"I do not know," he replied flatly, covering the sound of his... emotions was not quite the right term. "I do not feel like myself." He felt dark and stormy and grey and rainy and... And he felt things he had not felt since Gohan had befriended him.

 _And he **did not want to hold the baby** , and how could he not want to hold his child? _What kind of father was he? At the same time, he desperately wanted to keep the child close to him at all times. But... He curled his body around Suri, closing his eyes, pinning his ears. The baby cooed, chubby little fingers curling into his pajama shirt. He breathed in the baby's scent, and for a moment, the shroud parted. It was short, and when it dropped, his mind was darker than ever. He sighed.

"Piccolo?" Chichi touched his arm. "I...I'm here for you, honey. Can..." She paused, and leaned against him, "can you...explain it, at all?"

Piccolo, face still close to Suri, shook his head.

"I do not know how."

He could almost _hear_ her purse her lips. "This is not a matter of 'can't or won't,'" he added, slightly irritated that she did not believe him and also too tired, too listless, to care. "I _cannot_ explain it."

Chichi was silent for a long time, and he thought she had given up.

"Gohan's quite worried about you," she murmured. "He told me yesterday that he thought you might be getting ill."

Piccolo lifted his face from the baby's.

"I am not _getting_ sick, I _am_ sick." His words surprised him...but they made sense. Why else would his thoughts be so dark and lonely and constantly focusing on how afraid of his family growing old he felt? How was he supposed to raise this little one without Chichi? No matter how long it might take... How long they had... She was human.

He swallowed. That was it, was it not? He was afraid of being alone again, and therefore hiding away from his loved ones, even little Suri. Tiny little Suri, whom he had carried and birthed, to whom he desperately wished to connect, had been a nearly unbearable presence. Connecting meant being vulnerable. So he walled himself off. To protect himself. Which, he knew was ridiculous. He should be surrounding himself with them. Curling up on Chichi's lap, her chest. Cuddling with Goten, reading with Gohan. Not withdrawing to the master bedroom and ....and sulking. But sulking was all he had the energy to do. He did not even have the goddam energy to _sleep_ half of the time. It was the most perplexing and horrible and dull and achy situation he had ever experienced.

Piccolo squinted when Chichi flicked on the light, ears pinning. Suri's fat little face scrunched up and was promptly buried in his father's chest.

"Piccolo." He looked at her, and in the new light of the room, he saw her worry and confusion lining her pretty face. Some of the lines, he knew, would not smooth way. She had worry lines, and laughter lines, and more worry lines...most small and none of them could ever detract from her beauty. They were a sign of living, after all, telling the story of her life, proving that she was real. And if anyone on this goddamn planet had the right to worry lines, it was Chichi. "Baby, it's... It's normal to feel...down, extra tired...after having a baby. Is that what's wrong?" He could tell from her voice that she did not believe it was that. Not alone, anyway. The namekian looked down at his son, a gentle claw stroking a chubby cheek.

"It started as that," taking care of the baby had worn him down, sucked his reserves to levels of emptiness he had rarely known. But...

"But it's more than that? Now?"

His ears flicked, not sure he could open up to her regarding his fears, the constant thoughts of death plaguing his mind and dancing before his eyes when he closed them. Yet... This was his wife. He loved her...and she him. He could tell her, surely. "Piccolo," Chichi's voice, although still soft, motherly, now carried an edge. That demanding, no-nonsense tone. He looked back from Suri to her.

"Having Suri," Piccolo began, ears pinning against the sides of his head, "has reminded me of the...the vast difference in our life-spans. And... And I cannot seem to shake the thought..." He had to stop, it was not a deliberate action, not in the slightest. A shaking inhale, and Piccolo bowed his head to Suri's warm little body, "the thought of losing all of you. And being _alone_ again." It was constant, tearing at him, shredding his insides and ripping his heart to tatters.

“Baby…” Chichi murmured, one hand gently rubbing his back and the other squeezing his bicep. He had been feeling rather flabby since he had started to show roughly two months into his pregnancy. And he had not been able to make himself get back into shape since the birth. Thirty years of perfect tone and musculature down the drain… But caring about the conditioning of his body was fleeting. “Piccolo, I know… I know how hard it is, having those kind of thoughts - no, no Baby, I really do. Remember after Goku died, again? And I was pregnant with Goten and crying all of the time? Then I didn’t brush my hair or get out bed or cook or - or anything for a long time?”

After a moment, he nodded. It had been a rather confusing time. Chichi was a spitfire, and melancholy had not suited her.

It fit him, though.

“How did you feel better?”

Chichi did not answer, but she did lean close and kiss his temple, the hand on his back slipping up to caress his ear.

“It took some time, and a lot of support from my family. You. It’s not always like that, though.” Piccolo closed his eyes and listened to her speak. "I think...for me, I know for me, that it's more anxiety. I get anxious over things so hypothetical that the chance of them occurring is essentially impossible." She rubbed his ears, kissing his temple again. "Even when I have no reason to be anxious, I might be." He knew that. He saw the way she fussed over every little thing, the way she wrung her hands when the situation was out of her control, how she would shut down or even faint when the stress became too high. "For you...I don't think it's anxiety, honey. Even if you're thinking about what you're afraid of... I..."

Piccolo lifted his head, looking tiredly at her. "They go hand in hand."

"How do _I_ feel better?"

Chichi pursed her lips, her brow furrowing in thought.

"Well, let's...let's take care of some of those fears, yeah? It's not a magic _cure_...but it might be a magical _help_." Her hand slipped around to gently touch Suri’s chubby cheek. “You’re afraid of me getting old and dying, huh? Well, Mister, I assure you that forty-five is still quite young. But,” she kissed his temple again, “I’ve been thinking about this too. And I was thinking that you and I would gather up the Dragon Balls and wish that I have my body aged back to say...twenty-five or so,” she kissed his ear, and although his heart still felt heavy, his lips twitched, “and then with the second - we get two, right? Yes, two - the second wish will be that I am given a life span to match your own. How does that sound?”

He turned his head and kissed her, short and chaste, but enough to convey just how much he appreciated her words, her promises. She was good for her promises. And the thought of her being with her all of his life...well that was good. And that did help. Like she said, it was far from a cure, but… It helped.

He looked back down at Suri, and the babe looked sleepily up at him. “I think,” Chichi murmured, rubbing his back again, “that it’s time you let him in, really let him in.”  
“I don’t want him to feel this,” Piccolo murmured, shaking his head, arms tightening around the baby.

“He already is, Piccolo.”

He swallowed, knowing that what she said was true. Knowing that Suri's desperate attempts to bond with him were as much for his own comfort as they were for the child's.

 

He frowned, feeling tears prickling in his eyes as the baby’s consciousness once brushed against his, and, desperately fighting to keep his face from crumpling, Piccolo let down the barrier walling him off from his child.

**Author's Note:**

> I am in no way implying that he's "better" at the end. Recovery doesn't happen overnight, and recovery isn't linear.


End file.
